Longtime baseball scout for the Chicago Cubs and Sea Gate resident
Billy Blitzer grew up in Brighton Beach, has lived in Sea Gate for the past 36 years, and is a pro scout for the Chicago Cubs. Baseball has been an integral part of his life since he played Little League at Coney Island's Kaiser Park and with his...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island Houses and on Mermaid Avenue in the 1950s and '60s
Musician Andy Fuhrman grew up in Coney Island Houses and on Mermaid Avenue and remembers every store in the neighborhood. Andy was on the football team at Lincoln High School in the 1960s, worked games on the Bowery, and was a pioneering surfer at...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of growing up in Coney Island during the Great Depression and 55 years practicing law
Charles Berkman, who was 88 when this interview was recorded and turned 90 on July 2, 2018, grew up on West 29th Street in Coney Island during the Great Depression. The youngest of nine children of a hard-working orphan immigrant from Poland,...
Content type: Oral History Item
Lifelong Coney Island resident and author of Living Life Like It's Golden
Dionne Brown, who has lived in Coney Island all her life, also works here. She grew up in Surfside Gardens and attended Surfside School (PS 329), Bay Academy, Lincoln High School, and Kingsborough Community College. A love of reading was instilled...
Content type: Oral History Item
Clothing company CEO George Rudes grew up in the shadow of the Half Moon Hotel
George Rudes lived in Coney Island from 1930 until 1948 when he went off to college. He lived next door to the Half Moon Hotel on West 29th Street. His father, Leo Isaac Rudes, was president of the synagogues on Mermaid Avenue and the one on West...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of working at a Coney Island beach chair and umbrella rental company as a teen in the 1970s
Steve Larkin's family lived in Coney Island and Brighton Beach from the time his Latvian-born grandfather David Latzkin immigrated here in 1903 until they moved in 1978. The family resided at 55 Railroad Avenue and later on Brighton 7th Street....
Content type: Oral History Item
Founder and director of Brighton Ballet Theater, founded in 1987
Coney Island resident Irina Roizin emigrated from Ukraine in 1976 and realized her childhood dream of founding a ballet school, Brighton Ballet Theater, in 1987. Roizin recounts first impressions of Brighton Beach and Coney, the challenges of...
Content type: Oral History Item
Pakistani immigrant and Lincoln High School graduate recounts living on West 15th Street
Junaid Anwar recounts times living on West 15th Street in Coney Island, where he moved as a 14-year-old along with his mother and brother to join their father in America. Although a Pakistani immigrant, he quickly adapts to the American way of life ...
Content type: Oral History Item
Coney Island businessman
Sal Corona grew up working and playing in Coney Island in the 1950's. His Uncle Pete owned the Peluso Machine and Iron Works shop that repaired and fabricated replacement parts for rides, so he could get on many of the major rides in Coney...
Content type: Oral History Item
Memories of the Bobsled, Caterpillar and Parachute Jump
Joan grew up in Brooklyn and describes it as a magical place where neighborhood people all knew each other and the smell of tomato sauce was in the air on a Sunday. In the summer, her father worked in an arcade near the Parachute Jump. She recalls...
Content type: Oral History Item